EDDense-Net: Fully Dense Encoder Decoder Network for Joint Segmentation of Optic Cup and Disc

Glaucoma is an eye disease that causes damage to the optic nerve, which can lead to visual loss and permanent blindness. Early glaucoma detection is therefore critical in order to avoid permanent blindness. The estimation of the cup-to-disc ratio (CDR) during an examination of the optical disc (OD) is used for the diagnosis of glaucoma. In this paper, we present the EDDense-Net segmentation network for the joint segmentation of OC and OD. The encoder and decoder in this network are made up of dense blocks with a grouped convolutional layer in each block, allowing the network to acquire and convey spatial information from the image while simultaneously reducing the network's complexity. To reduce spatial information loss, the optimal number of filters in all convolution layers were utilised. In semantic segmentation, dice pixel classification is employed in the decoder to alleviate the problem of class imbalance. The proposed network was evaluated on two publicly available datasets where it outperformed existing state-of-the-art methods in terms of accuracy and efficiency. For the diagnosis and analysis of glaucoma, this method can be used as a second opinion system to assist medical ophthalmologists

Response surface optimization of gamma radiation-induced variation in functional quality of Nelumbo nucifera rhizome flour at various particle sizes

The cumulative effect of particle size (PS), gamma radiation dose (GRD), and suspension period (SP) on the functional quality of N. nucifera rhizome flour was optimized. A tri-factorial central composite design was constructed at five levels of each of PS, GRD, and SP. The N. nucifera rhizome flour at the selected particle sizes (50, 100, 150, 200, and 250 μm) was subjected to gamma irradiation at the selected levels of GRD (5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 kGy) followed by the analysis of its functional properties at different levels of SP (6, 12, 18, 24, and 30 h). The response-surface analysis showed a statistically significant linear positive effect of PS on the water absorption capacity (WAC) and swelling capacity (SC) and a linear negative effect on protein solubility index (PSI) ( p=0.000-0.028). The GRD showed a significant linear positive effect on oil absorption capacity (OAC) and PSI while a linear negative effect on WAC and SC (p=0.000-0.008). The PS and GRD showed significant quadratic negative effects on WAC, OAC, and SC. However, the SP showed no significant linear effect on the studied functional properties of the flou

RetinaLiteNet: a lightweight transformer based CNN for retinal feature segmentation

Retinal image analysis plays a pivotal role in diagnosing diseases like glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, neurodegenerative disorders, and cardiovascular diseases. The recent advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) can assist the practitioners to analyze the images accurately. In this research, a lightweight deep learning model is proposed which is based on multitask learning to segment the retinal images including retinal vessels and optic disc for further analysis by clinicians. The proposed model has encoder-decoder framework, where the encoder has convolutional layers with multi-head attention that captures both local details and long-range dependencies effectively. The resulting features from convolutional layers and multi-head attention are fused together to make the model more efficient and resilient for segmentation tasks. To further refine the features, the skip connections are implemented along with the convolutional block attention module (CBAM) in the decoder. The model's efficiency is validated on two publicly available datasets (i.e., IOSTAR and DRIVE) to confirm the lightweight aspects and robustness. It achieved the dice scores of 80.6% and 93.3% on DRIVE and 80.1% and 85.4% on IOSTAR dataset for simultaneous segmentation of blood vessels and optic disc, respectively. The empirical evaluations show 0.25 MB of memory, 0.066 million parameters, and a FLOPs estimation of 2.46 GFLOPs, which is better than existing models

Starch-grafted polyacrylic acid copolymer with acrylamide: an advanced adsorbent for Victoria green B dye removal and environmental remediation

A new adsorbent, starch grafted polyacrylic acid copolymer with polyacrylamide (SG@AA-co-AM), was synthesized using free radical polymerization techniques. Proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR), Fourier-transform infrared spectrophotometry (FTIR), X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), particle size distribution (PSD), and fluorescent electron microscopy (FEM) were employed to elucidate the structure, crystalline nature, thermal stability, and surface morphology of SG@AA-co-AM. SG@AA-co-AM was utilized as an adsorbent for the removal of Victoria green B (VGB) dye from wastewater. SG@AA-co-AM exhibited a removal percentage (% R) of 97.6% towards VGB under optimized conditions: a contact time of 30 min, temperature of 25 °C, adsorbent dose of 20 mg, pH of 8, concentration of dye solution of 20 ppm, and volume of dye solution of 30 mL. The point of zero charge (PZC) for SG@AA-co-AM was determined to be 5.2. Nonlinear pseudo-second-order (PSO) and Langmuir adsorption isotherm models best fitted to the experimental data, with regression coefficients (R2) of 0.95 and 0.99, respectively. The results confirmed the chemi-sorption and monolayer adsorption of VGB onto SG@AA-co-AM. Thermodynamic studies revealed that the adsorption of VGB onto SG@AA-co-AM is endothermic and spontaneous. Furthermore, the regeneration experiment showed a decline of 3.9% after five cycles, confirming the economical and reusable nature of SG@AA-co-AM.<br/

A comparison of the presence of Theileria ovis by PCR amplification of their SSU rRNA gene in small ruminants from two provinces of Pakistan

Objective: To compare the presence of Theileria ovis in small ruminants from two provinces of Pakistan and to determine the risk factors associated with the spread of theileriosis. Methods: In present study, a total of 210 blood samples were collected from sheep (n=99) and goats (n=111) from 5 sampling sites in Punjab (Dera Ghazi Khan, Layyah, Multan and Rahim Yar Khan districts) and Khyber Pukhtoon Khwa (district Kohat) provinces, in Pakistan, from randomly selected herds. Data on the characteristics of the animals (species, gender, age, tick presence or absence, prior treatment for babesiosis) and the herd (location, size, species of animals, dogs associated with the herds, tick burden of dogs associated with the herds) was collected through questionnaires. Results: Twelve blood samples (6% of total), 11 from district Kohat, produced the 520 base pairs DNA fragment specific for small subunit ribosomal RNA (ssu rRNA) gene of Theileria ovis, by PCR amplification, of which 11 were sheep and 1 was goat indicating that sheep are more significantly (P=0.001) prone to this parasite. On the other hand parasite was detected only in 2 out of 210 samples (1%) by blood smear screening confirming PCR as the reliable detection tool. Conclusions: PCR is more sensitive and reliable diagnostic tool for detection of Theileria sp. as compared to blood smear screening. Incidence of Theileria ovis is very high in Khyber Pukhtoon Khwa as compared to Punjab province. It was also observed that presence of ticks on animals was the only significant risk factor associated with the theileriosis in small ruminants. © 2012 Asian Pacific Tropical Medicine Press

Camera-based interactive wall display using hand gesture recognition

the recognition of Hand gestures has become a critical point as it is widely used in everyday applications. the challenge in this is to improve the recognition effect and develop a fast recognition method. Glove and led-based methods involve external devices in detecting and interpreting hand gestures, making human-computer interaction less natural. So, different approaches have been used previously that use purely hand gestures in many systems based on human-computer interaction. This system provides a more natural human-computer interaction; it must be made efficient processing speed of classifying the test data (images) from among the training data (database stored for gestures recognition). This speed makes gesture recognition more effective and reliable to use as compared to previously proposed methods. In this research paper, a proposed system based on a camera-based interactive wall display using bare hand gestures with efficient processing speed for controlling the speed of the mouse and other functions. This system has three modules: one uses Genetic Algorithm and Otsu thresholding to identify the query images as the right or wrong gesture and perform the correct action in case of the proper motion, another module controls functions outside of PowerPoint files or Word documents, e.g., to open folders and go through drives, and the third module uses the convexity hull method for finding the number of fingers open in the user's gesture and operates accordingly

Role of oxidative stress and antioxidants in thiram-induced tibial dyschondroplasia

Tetramethyl thiuram disulfide (thiram) is an important dithiocarbamate bactericide; it has been widely used for the control of various diseases in fruits, vegetables, seeds and food grains. However, it also causes environmental pollution problems and poses a threat to human health to a certain extent. Thiram induces tibial dyschondroplasia (TD) by causing oxidative stress and antioxidants imbalance in tibial growth plate in poultry. TD is a skeletal abnormality in fastgrowing poultry birds. It has been considered an economically important disease in poultry that affects poultry industry by carcass loss at meat processing plant due to decrease in disease resistance, production performance, and carcass quality and induces breast cysts and osteomyelitis worldwide. Oxidative stress is developed due to the imbalance of free radical oxygen, which disrupts the equilibrium state of oxidant and antioxidant tending to oxidation. This review is based on the current research, mainly to explore the relationship and mechanism between tibial dyschondroplasia and oxidative stress induced by thiram, which provides a new theoretical foundation for the further research of the related mechanism.The study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 32002350) and the Youth Innovative Talents Project of Education Department of Guangdong Province (No. 2020KQNCX007).Peer reviewe

Assessment of Avermectins-Induced Toxicity in Animals

Macrocyclic lactones, particularly the avermectins, have completely revolutionized the approaches aimed at control of parasites. These avermectins are the most widely used anti-parasitic drugs in veterinary field with sales exceeding one billion US dollars annually. However, before clinical usage, their safety evaluation in the animals is a major critical factor that must be considered. Many studies have reported the negative effects of avermectins like ivermectin, abamectin, doramectin, and eprinomectin on the host animals. These harmful effects arise from avermectins targeting GABA and glutamate-gated chloride channels present both in the parasites and the host animals. In this review, various modes of avermectins action along with the negative effects on the host like nephrotoxicity, hepatotoxicity, neurotoxicity, reproductive toxicity, and endocrine disruption were discussed in detail. Furthermore, other important issues like ecotoxicity, drug resistance, and drug residues in milk associated with avermectins usage were also discussed, which need special attention

Ultrasonic Synthesis and Biomedical Application of Mn0.5Zn0.5ErxYxFe2−2xO4 Nanoparticles

In the present study, biocompatible manganese nanoparticles have been linked with zinc and iron molecules to prepare different derivatives of Mn0.5Zn0.5ErxYxFe2−2xO4 NPs (x = 0.02, 0.04, 0.06, 0.08, 0.10), using an ultrasonication approach. The structure, surface morphology, and chemical compositions of Mn0.5Zn0.5ErxYxFe2−2xO4 NPs were elucidated by X-ray diffractometer (XRD), High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), scanning electron microscope (SEM), and Energy Dispersive X-Ray Analysis (EDX) techniques. The bioactivity of Mn0.5Zn0.5ErxYxFe2−2xO4 NPs on normal (HEK-293) and (HCT-116) colon cancer cell line was evaluated. The Mn0.5Zn0.5ErxYxFe2−2xO4 NPs treatment post 48 h resulted in a significant reduction in cells (via MTT assay, having an IC50 value between 0.88 µg/mL and 2.40 µg/mL). The specificity of Mn0.5Zn0.5ErxYxFe2−2xO4 NPs were studied by treating them on normal cells line (HEK-293). The results showed that Mn0.5Zn0.5ErxYxFe2−2xO4 NPs did not incur any effect on HEK-293, which suggests that Mn0.5Zn0.5ErxYxFe2−2xO4 NPs selectively targeted the colon cancerous cells. Using Candida albicans, antifungal activity was also studied by evaluating minimum inhibitory/fungicidal concentration (MIC/MFC) and the effect of nanomaterial on the germ tube formation, which exhibited that NPs significantly inhibited the growth and germ tube formation. The obtained results hold the potential to design nanoparticles that lead to efficient bioactivity